The Learning Development Department supports students of all abilities including the able, gifted and talented and those with specific learning difficulties, such as dyslexia.

The Learning Resource Centre provides teachers and students with materials to support and extend the curriculum. The aim is to enable them all to achieve their best in secondary education.

Learning Support

Our dedicated team includes trained teachers, specialising in areas such as Dyslexia, Maths, Speech and Language and ASD. Students needing support are identified when they enter Beechwood, through screening, or referral by teachers, and an individual programme is put in place. This may include individual lessons or Directed Study and may involve replacing a curriculum subject with time spent in Learning Development. The subject to be replaced is considered on an individual basis, so that we can give the students the best curriculum programme to suit their needs.

Students are screened for extra time and other access arrangements in external examinations. This can include in-school assessment or referral to other professionals such as an Educational Psychologist.

We work closely with subject teachers, and the Learning Resource Centre to improve students’ learning experience and skills. All students are base-line assessed at the beginning of the school year and these results are used to form reading and spelling booster groups before school and at lunchtimes if necessary. Other support groups are put in place depending on need.

For new students entering the school, we help to ensure a smooth transition by visiting their previous schools, through taster days at Beechwood and our booklets. We run friendship and social skills groups in Key Stage 3 to enable students to integrate successfully into their peer group. We have two welcoming Learning Development rooms for students to use at break time and lunch time if they need a retreat.

Gifted and Talented students

At Beechwood Sacred Heart we aim to provide appropriate education for all of our students. In the case of gifted and talented students we aim to identify their particular strengths as early as possible and then to provide them with every possible opportunity to develop their specific talents or abilities to the full. The Learning Development department liaises with all departments to ensure that strategies are in place to meet the academic needs of these students.